The Mormon missionary experience

Starting at 4:00 AM every Monday morning, buses filled with groggy young men and women leave the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah, to deliver newly trained Mormon missionaries to the Salt Lake International Airport.

By 8:00, hundreds of these 19-to-21-year-old “Elders” and “Sisters” will be found in pairs or in groups in TSA screening lines and and at half the gates in the airport. For the next few hours they’ll board flights that will eventually take them everywhere from Baton Rouge to Hong Kong to Chicago to Buenos Aires to Moscow.

And then for two years, foregoing all forms of entertainment, dating, and direct contact with friends and family, they’ll serve their God and their church.